Macy took this picture (upward dog!!!)Since I am now practicing yoga daily , I am also trying to live the Yoga practice in all areas of my life.......esp. my speech. I came across this article in my yoga journal while camping about yoga speech.....and now have been monitoring my speech more carefully. It is very humbling to see the areas I continue to mess up with unhealthy speech that just slips out of my mouth without conscious thought.
(Ie: this morning already I blurted out some sarcastic remark about George Bush hugging service men in Iraq.....was that kind? was that even necessary?)
well hopefully, I am becoming more conscious about my thoughts and my speech and what I put out in the universe.
Is it kind???
It may seem obvious that some remarks are kind and some not. But what happens when kindness seems at odds with truth? Are there truths that should not be spoken—even kindly—because they are simply too crushing?
Is it true???
does "true" mean only what is literally true? You know you're lying (hopefully!) when you willfully distort or misreport or deny facts. But what about slight exaggerations? If you report an incident and leave out part of the story, does it still count as truth?
Is it necessary?
"I've had words literally stick in my throat," a friend told me, explaining why he came to the conclusion that, confronted with the conflict between kindness and truth, the best choice is simply to remain silent. But sometimes, we must speak out even when we dread the consequences.
Where Words Come From/Words into Speech
To practice right speech is essentially to approach speaking as a form of yoga. The first stage in the yoga of speech is to start becoming conscious of what actually comes out of your mouth. You might begin by spending a day eavesdropping on yourself—hopefully, without activating your inner critic. Try to notice not just what you say, but the tone with which you say it. See if you can sense the emotional residue your words create. How do you feel after certain remarks? How do others react?
Speech yoga is a form of self-inquiry, in which you ask yourself: What makes me say what I say? What unexpressed anger or grief or longing might lie frozen in my emotional body, ready to surface as lies or sarcastic remarks or words meant to mask what I really want to say?
-Sally Kempton
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